The present finding relates to the field of apiculture; in particular, it refers to a partition between the honeycomb and shallow box of beehives, having the function of queen excluder and bee escape.
As well known to the operators in the field, in beehives for the production of honey the honeycomb and the upper store, called shallow box, are separated by a frame called an xe2x80x9cexcluderxe2x80x9d, whose meshes are suitably sized to allow the passage of worker bees from the honeycomb to the shallow box and vice versa, during the entire cycle of honey harvesting, and to prevent the entrance of the queen bee and of male bees into the shallow box, as they are larger than worker bees. This is to prevent breeding into the shallow box and to have an easier and quicker honey extraction and a cleaner honey, i.e., free from grubs. Upon honey extraction, however, the beekeeper must first make the worker bees still in the shallow box come out. To this purpose, he is usually forced to open the beehive the day before harvesting, removing the excluder for queens to replace it with a device called a bee escape, which consists of a series of channels suitably sized and configured to allow the passage of worker bees, usually in one direction, that is from the shallow box to the honeycomb. Since this is a very complex and difficult operation, many beekeepers prefer collecting the shallow box with the bees still inside the same, but they are thus compelled to disperse or kill them, thereby wasting working time.
An object of the present finding is to obviate the above disadvantage by proposing a honeycomb-shallow box partition for beehives which should be configurable to act both as a queen excluder frame during the normal production of honey by the worker bees, and as a bee escape when the shallow box must be collected for honey harvesting.
Another object of the finding is to provide a honeycomb-shallow box partition wherein switching between the operation as excluder and that as escape should be easily allowed by the actuation of a control lever, accessible from the outside of the beehive, without having the need of opening the beehive and disturbing the bees
Such objects are achieved by a honeycomb-shallow box partition for beehives for honey production consisting of two upper and lower members, respectively facing the honeycomb and the shallow box, and superimposeable to form a frame serving as queen excluder, and a plurality of channels for the unidirectional passage from the shallow box to the honeycomb and therefore serving as a bee escape, one of said two members being capable of rotating relative to the other between an opening position of said frame and concurrent closing of said channels, and a closing position of said frame and concurrent opening of said channels.
The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and specific objects attained by its uses, reference is made to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which a preferred embodiment of the invention is illustrated.